Veröffentlicht
Aug 14, 2017
- Ana Quiroga and Uge Pañeda are a production duo, DJ and live act based in Gijón, Spain. As LCC, short for Las CasiCasiotone, they've been active since 2010, mostly writing music for films, installations and other visual outlets—to date, they've released only a handful of records. Their productions have a rich sense of narrative, even when the story they're telling isn't so obvious. Bastet, their second album on Editions Mego, is named after an Egyptian deity, both revered and feared as a nurturing mother figure and bloody avenger; a goddess of domesticity and war. She's also associated with fertility, music and merrymaking, but the baleful traits of the legend come through most starkly here.
The sirens on "Am"—which also bleed into the start of "Lb"—suggest danger from the start. This mood is expressed elsewhere on the LP through dense storm clouds of sound. Bastet is austere and gloomy throughout, but especially on "Ka," with its ritual drumming, gong loops and digitised crashes that sound like glass being smashed. "Lb" is destructive and mystical, too: fireworks or flares crackle and explode behind a warm layer of liturgical chanting, suggesting an end-of-times tableau. "Ba" offers light relief in a freeform brass melody. It squiggles up and down the scales as drums thud and snares tick, like a clock counting down to something. Time appears to be running out.
LCC's last album, D Evolution, addressed the fraught relationship between man and his environment, but the music itself was steeped in emotion. It had soul, and a connection to the dance floor. Bastet is far more abstract and ambiguous. There are no pulses or conventional rhythms—instead, it's the expressive compositions that command your attention. They all point to a bigger picture that never fully reveals itself. Listening to Bastet is like stepping into a theatre halfway through a performance. But, far from being frustrating, LCC's cryptic vision pulls you deeper into their world.
Tracklist01. Am
02. Lb
03. Ba
04. He
05. She
06. Ka
07. Aj
08. Us